


Fond Ones Are Flown

by LittleDesertFlower



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/M, One Shot, i may torture Qrow a little more than he deserves but what can i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2019-01-22 15:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12485380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleDesertFlower/pseuds/LittleDesertFlower
Summary: (find me at @fic_flower)





	Fond Ones Are Flown

**Author's Note:**

> Thus Kindly I Scatter, the words on Summer Rose’s gravestone, appear in a 1805 poem by Thomas Moore. I thought it might be a nice touch having this small fic honor that poem and the reference in Rwby by using another one of its lines as its title—Fond Ones Are Flown.

He had been _happy_. It was this very fact what broke his heart, the remembrance of such warmth that he’d once gripped firmly in his hand, only to helplessly watch it slip through his fingers.

Ignorance had been bliss. At least at the very beginning, when glasses breaking and small cuts on everybody’s hands could be attributed to chance, randomness, a trifle mistake. He’d been unscathed, surrounded by a sea of people with unimportant yet ever-present scars, and had often wondered why, innocently.

Beacon had brought him the answers at a time when he wasn’t even interested in them anymore. People tripped, overcooked their food, lost at poker, missed their punches, got dumped. It hadn’t been long after finding his team that the truth had come to him.

Misfortune had then become his companion, born as a semblance he’d never asked for and somehow always suspected lay deep inside. He walked hand-in-hand with it, and could almost feel it slip into everyone’s life except his own. But wasn’t it a kind of misfortune as well to bring disaster to those one loved, and lose them because of it?

And even when his elders had warned him against not sharing the truth of his semblance with his teammates, even when the kid he’d once been had faced the reality of what was going on by building walls around himself, he’d been _happy._

_Her aura shines white, shimmering around her, electrical, her cape flapping violently behind her. She faces the enemy—Grimm or rival team, it makes no matter—with bold determination, her weapon held firmly, her gaze fixed on her next target, and then she strikes like a slit of silver in the stormy sky. And beneath that shattering image of a hard-as-stone woman lies a softness and goofiness that has him docilely smiling to himself. A tap on his arm, a long-lashed wink, a scythe VS scythe spar. She’s the beginning of their team, their leader and heart, and he’s the last on the list, a good-for-nothing that has built a life for himself out of bad luck and skill at covering everyone’s backs._

It had once been all the light he thought himself deserving of, watching her stand in the center of everything and wishing she couldn’t and wouldn’t see. Things were alright in the battlefield, as long as Raven, the yang to his yin, was around to neutralize his semblance with the good fortune of her own. But Raven was prone to disappearing from the scene a little too soon, a little too fast, and this lovely neutrality went with her. He’d usually left then as well, left the girl of his dreams behind.

He’d grown to love this moon-like woman with the speed of the light, and had taken to pretending he didn’t notice her cheeks pale whenever he walked away. But four years were four years too many, and she’d found the way to follow wherever he went, secretly at first, then her silver eyes had slit at him once, had argued for her when her words were too teary, and the truth of this elephant in the room had become a tangible thing.

Raven had had to become his good luck charm in the midst of this whirlpool. He kept his sister around at all times when he feared he could hurt this new precious thing between his leader and him. Yet he’d been a fool to believe Raven would stay forever. He’d believed all the same. Faith—or rather, hope—was all he had. And still, somehow, he’d been _happy._

_“Do you even know what you’re signing up for?” he asks her, passing a hand through his hair. He’s managed to keep the desperation out of his voice for now, but his hands are too shaky for someone as still as he is._

_For days now he’s pondered, contrasted the sheer happiness of it all with the dark side clinging at his lungs, begging at him to let her go for her own sake. And for his own as well—he’ll never find forgiveness within if something happens to her because of him. Even so, what does it all matter?, in the end he’s sat down with her to talk anyway._

_She’s looking at him, those big gray eyes of her pulling him in into raging salt water, and nods. He thinks there’s a smile in the corner of her lips aching to escape them._

_“We have Raven.”_

_He snorts, his manners forgotten. “Like she cares.”_

_“Well, then,” She grins this time. “I guess I do know what I’m signing up for.”_

_“Summer…” He starts._

_Life has put a finger to his lips, shutting him up. Maybe he ought to listen._

Maybe he ought not to have.

He’d been happy, so much so it’d had burst out of him for years on, yes. The bubble had grown bigger and bigger, first with graduation, then a job too big for his shoulders, and finally the pure bliss of domesticity. Home became the people around him in a cottage surrounded by trees and vastness. Home became Summer curling up with him in bed after Tai and Raven locked themselves up in the next bedroom. Home became the thrill of the chase, hunting evil things hiding in the shadows and shielding the purest force there existed on Remnant; the long hours spent teaching from a safe distance, teaching nubile knowledge to even more nubile students. Home became all their weapons stashed in the same corner of the house, and breakfast around a table that was too small for the four of them. He made a home out of all of it, every single small detail that warmed his heart.

And then there had come little Yang, a force of nature born from two hurricanes made flesh. Raven and Tai had wanted her so much their enthusiasm had made everyone forget Raven wasn’t meant to stay. She left when winter came, leaving behind a baby with no mother, Yang’s father with a hole in his heart, and no answers to their questions.

He should’ve seen it coming, should’ve expected the other shoe to drop, should’ve grown less confident. The little accidents returned to his daily routine, the bags under his eyes darkened, and he distanced himself from everything, even when his best friend was mourning the loss of his partner, burdening the role of a mother onto Summer that only added to the stress of her life as a huntress outside of these four walls. And still, paranoid all of a sudden again, scared to wake up and find his friends dead because of him, some part of him had been _happy_.

_It happens a little too quickly, a little too routinely, when Summer’s walking down the stairs to have breakfast with what’s left of her team. She’s smiling at him so serenely, she looks like an angel, dressed in white, her dark-and-red hair ruffled. He almost smiles back, almost forgets he’s on his own now against the tidal wave of misfortune inside him, and then she falls, a little too quickly, and he can’t catch her in time._

_A snapped ankle. Nothing she can’t brush off with another smile, tired this time, as he sits her down on a stool and Tai runs in with the medical kit. Together, the three of them bandage her foot, then Tai leaves again, alone in his grief._

_“I’m pregnant,” she whispers, smiling, biting her lip._

_His world falls on him, all the weight of it piling up on his chest as her smile grows wider. He can’t help it, and he’s taking a few steps back without realizing it. Such a simple precaution… He wants to yell, not at her—he doesn’t want to mar the sheer happiness in her eyes—, but he wants to cry his lungs out, wonder aloud mid-scream why it had to be him, why life had to grant him this small hint at perfection when he knows all too well he can’t have it._

_“It’s gonna work out,” she says, but he’s not listening. A few tears stream down his face. His heart is filled with a joy he’s repulsed to feel. But can he leave? Can he protect her and their child like this? Will she ever forgive him if he abandons them like Raven has? Will Tai?_

_“How’d you know?” he mutters._

_He’s frozen in the spot, and his sight is blurry, his eyes too wet. Summer stands, leaning on a table, and limps her way to him. He tries not to flinch this time, not to act on his instinct to shield her from his semblance._

_“Take my word for it this once, will you?” Her tone is soothing, yet also slightly mocking, and he smirks a little out of habit. Whether he likes it or not, he’s had joy running through his veins before, and his blood is still pumping it even after it’s left his body._

_She kisses him then, or he kisses her, what does it matter? And she smiles against his lips, and he swears he could sell his soul right now for it to always be like this, just his home—no fear, no sadness, no complications. Just his family._

Ruby had been born nine months later, dead ringer for her mother, except for the attitude, as Summer had once used to joke about. They were the most curious of families any of them had ever seen. Three members of a dismembered team, a stay-at-home dad that refused to take up a teaching job, a mother of two girls—one her own, the other one as good as—, and a happy time bomb that once more had grown accustomed to a quiet life, to pretending he wasn’t going to blow up one day.

Both him and Summer worked together, and apart, to rid the world—however temporarily—of the evils in the shadows. It was his only redemption. He brought misfortune because it was in his core to, it was only fitting he should actively fight to bring some good too. And when they both came home, together or apart, they had two daughters and a friend waiting for them there. The strains of a secret life disguised as duty vanished under the simple warmth of a home to share.

He’d been so _happy_ to hold Ruby in his arms, teach her bad words when Summer wasn’t looking, show her the ways of the world she’d once make hers, it seemed impossible anything in the universe could dismantle it.

_It is sad morning, a bloody morning against pristine white, when it happens._

_The door to the cottage opens, and he comes in, his clothes torn and covered in blood Tai isn’t sure at first glance it’s his. Yet one can tell from that first glance that this man who’s returning home isn’t the same man who left it earlier—there’s emptiness in his glassy eyes, and defeat in his stance, normally so unfaltering._

_“Hey,” Tai says, frowning a little. “How was it? Where’s Summer?”_

_“Tai,” he says. It almost hurts him to, “she’s—she’s not coming,” His voice rasps, and he doesn’t cry, but he wishes he could. He isn’t even sure why he came back. Isn’t even sure how…_

_Tai grows pale, his eyes open wide, and he covers his mouth with his hand, shaking his head. “No… She can’t be—She can’t have—What happened?” he says, pacing._

_“What always happens.” He smiles. It’s like a scar on his face, that smile. Dead tissue that’s only there to remind him of the past. “Me.”_

_Tai finally sits down, exhaling. “You didn’t kill her.” Taiyang is pure fire, he’s inexhaustible, yet his voice is too tired to register as his._

_“She’s dead anyway. That doesn’t matter.”_

_“_ Stop _making it about you.” Tai replies, his eyes angry. He gets up and gets two mugs out of a cupboard, fills them up with black coffee, and hands one to his friend. “Blame yourself all you want, you didn’t kill her.”_

_For a while, neither of them say anything. Today’s silence is heavier than all the words they’ve shared since they’ve known each other. Today’s silence is another gone person’s silence._

_“You should go upstairs, get some rest…” Tai finally says, sighing._

_But he doesn’t move. His red eyes pierce Tai’s._

_“Look, I’m—I don’t think I can stay—” Understanding shines bright in Taiyang’s face. “I need you to—um—look after Ruby, I can’t risk taking her with me—”_

_“—she’s your daughter, for the love of god!—” Tai almost shouts. His friend shushes him, glancing at the girl’s room, where they’re still sleeping._

_“—_ because _she’s my daughter.” He says firmly, not looking away from Tai’s face._

_“Summer would’ve punched you for this.”_

_A bitter smirk pops up on the corner of his lips. “Trust me, I’d like nothing more than for her to be here to punch me right now.” He stands on his feet, looks at Tai, and sees all they’ve lost these few last months._

_Tai draws his brows together and tilts his head. “I’ll gladly do it for her.”_

_Those words remain in midair for a while. It’s not a threat, and he knows. Tai and him have come to blows once or twice in the past, but not in the face of something like this. Tai wouldn’t hit him now, even if he should._

_“I just can’t be in the same house you’re all in,” he says in low voice. “Not after today.”_

_He makes for the door, slowly. Maybe part of him is still hoping Tai will buckle him over, tackle him, punch him, kill him—_

_“So that’s it?” Tai says loudly, unmoving, behind him. “Your girlfriend dies and your first and only reaction is to disappear?”_

_“Not forever,” he clarifies immediately, guilt rushing over to meet him. “Just…from Patch, for a while. I’ll be back some time,” He turns around on his feet to look at this crazy man with the same child-like fire in his blue eyes. “I just—I can’t endanger any more people, Tai. I’m sorry.”_

_Then he walks past the door frame onto the corridor._

_“To hell with ‘I’m sorry’!” Tai roars in the end, not caring that his daughter and niece are sleeping nearby. “You’re_ orphaning _her!”_

_His red cloak smudges blood on the wooden floor when he walks by a dim-lit room. He doesn’t stop, but his eyes do, on the two little bundles of life sleeping on opposite beds. He looks at the baby with the fiery blond hair first, and wishes she was awake so he could say goodbye to those vibrant violet eyes, and then to the smallest baby he’s ever seen. She’s sleeping on her side, not even a toddler yet, her thick black hair growing._

_He manages a smile into which sadness soon sinks.  His heart drowns in it as well. For a moment, it’s like he’s staring right at Summer. But Summer’s a corpse, rotting in the rock of a cliff, and this is the only person in the world he would consider staying for. He reaches out a hand to smooth the hair on her forehead, shaking, but stops mid-way, remembering._

_“She’s better off that way.” With an unnoticeable sigh, he walks on._

 

But the winds brought him back to Patch, not often, not for long. He would stay for an afternoon—a weekend, at most—, under Taiyang’s mildly angry stare and surrounded by too many pictures of yellow- and black-haired little hurricanes as their parents had been. They’d surround him, asking for stories or telling their own, and the old feeling would engulf him for a few seconds as Yang listened, eyes wide open, and Ruby leaned on his chest, smiling giddily.

And, despite himself, his feeble patch of happiness shattered every single time this rose-cheeked child called him by the wrong name—Uncle Qrow.


End file.
